If Elected Clinton Sees Troops Staying in Iraq if She Is Elected

March 14, 2007

If Elected
Clinton Sees Some Troops Staying in Iraq if She Is Elected

WASHINGTON, March 14 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton foresees a “remaining military as well as political mission” in Iraq, and says that if elected president, she would keep a reduced but significant military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military.

In a half-hour interview on Tuesday in her Senate office, Mrs. Clinton said the scaled-down American military force that she would maintain in Iraq after taking office would stay off the streets in Baghdad and would no longer try to protect Iraqis from sectarian violence — even if it descended into ethnic cleansing.

In outlining how she would handle Iraq as commander in chief, Mrs. Clinton articulated a more-nuanced position than the one she has provided at her campaign events, where she has backed the goal of “bringing the troops home.”

She said in the interview that there were “remaining vital national security interests in Iraq” that would require a continuing deployment of American troops.

The United States’ security would be undermined if parts of Iraq turned into a failed state “that serves as a petri dish for insurgents and Al Qaeda,” she said. “It is right in the heart of the oil region. It is directly in opposition to our interests, to the interests of regimes, to Israel’s interests.”

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and PATRICK HEALY

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Israel rejects peace, er, new Palestinian government

Israel rejects new Palestinian government (Extra)

Mar 15, 2007, 12:43 GMT

Jerusalem - Israel rejected out of hand the new Palestinian unity government presented Thursday and urged Western leaders to stand firm on their pledge to boycott any government that refused to recognize the Jewish state, renounce violence and accept past interim peace deals.

'Unfortunately there's nothing explicit or implicit in the programme which shows acceptance of the three benchmarks of the international community,' Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mark Regev said.

'There is no recognition of Israel. There is no renunciation of terrorism and there is no acceptance of the signed agreements in the peace process,' he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

'The Israeli government will not deal with this new government and it is our hope that the international community will stand behind its own principles and not deal with a government that says no to peace and no to reconciliation.'

© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

House Overturns Bush Order To Widen Presidential Papers Access

House overturns Bush order on papers secrecy
Wed Mar 14, 2007 7:48 PM ET

By Peter Szekely

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Brushing aside a veto threat, the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to overturn a 2001 order by President George W. Bush that lets former presidents keep their papers secret indefinitely.

The measure, which drew bipartisan support and passed by a veto-busting 333-93 margin, was among White House-opposed bills the House passed that would widen access to government information and protect government whistleblowers.

"Today, Congress took an important step toward restoring openness and transparency in government," House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said.

The presidential papers bill nullifies a November 2001 order, criticized by historians, in which Bush allowed the White House or a former president to block release of a former president's papers and put the onus on researchers to show a "specific need" for many types of records.

Among beneficiaries of the Bush order was Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, a former vice president and president.

The order gave former vice presidents the right to stop the release of their papers through an executive privilege that previously only presidents could use. And it extended to deceased presidents' designees rights to keep their papers secret indefinitely.

The House bill would give current and former presidents 40 business days to object to requests to view their papers, allow a sitting president to override a former president's claim of executive privilege and strip former vice presidents and the designees of deceased presidents of the power to use executive privilege to block access to their historical documents.

In its veto warning, the White House said the bill encroaches on the president's constitutional authority and the 40-day deadline would force presidents to use executive privilege to block information requests "out of an abundance of caution" and thereby invite litigation.

The real reason, the White House said, for delays of up to five years in releasing presidential papers to researchers is a lack of archivists at presidential libraries.

Many historians, however, support the House bill, saying the Bush order has slowed the declassification process.

Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archives at George Washington University, said the average time to release presidential documents has grown to 78 months from 18 months since the Bush order, which he said directly contributed to one year of the lag.

A similar bill is expected to be introduced in the Senate.

Also passed by the House by a 331-94 margin, despite another veto threat, was a bill aimed at bolstering protections of government whistleblowers who report wrongdoing, especially those with private contractors and national security and scientific agencies.

A third bill, which passed 308-117, was aimed at speeding requests for government information made under the Freedom of Information Act. The White House stopped short of threatening to veto it but said it could not support the bill.

Judge rules Khartoum behind attack on USS Cole

Judge rules Khartoum behind attack on USS Cole
US federal judge blames Sudan for al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole in 2000 that killed 17 seamen.

Maoist rebels kill at least 49 Indian police officers

Related
Six protesters die in Indian land clashes
· Riot police battle farmers over new economic zones
· Loss of livelihoods fuels violence in West Bengal
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10.30am

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Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi
Thursday March 15, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


Maoist rebels march during their ninth convention at an undisclosed location in the jungles of Indian state of Chattisgarh. Photograph: AP

Hundreds of Maoist rebels armed with guns, grenades and home-made bombs attacked a remote police station in the dense forests of eastern India, in a pre-dawn raid that left at least 49 police officers dead.

The attack, which began at just after 2am, took the police station in the state of Chattisgarh, nearly 1,500km (930 miles) south-east of New Delhi, "by total surprise" said one official.

Between 300 and 400 rebels attacked the camp in the jungles in the southern part of the state, throwing grenades and petrol bombs. After killing 15 state police officers and 24 security officers from a state-armed militia force, the guerrillas set fire to the post before escaping with a substantial arms haul.

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The Naxalites, as they are known, are part of a hidden war in the middle of India's mineral-rich tribal belt in central India. These hardline fighters are heirs of the revolutionary ideology of Mao Zedong. Chhattisgarh is the state that suffers most from Maoist attacks, accounting for about half of national casualties in 2006, according to the Asian Centre for Human Rights.

Unlike their ideological cousins in Nepal, the guerrillas are not prepared to consider swapping the bullet for the ballot box. Across a wide swath of India, from Andhra Pradesh in the south to the Nepalese border, there are reports of underground armies hijacking trains, mounting audacious jailbreaks and murdering local politicians.

Ajai Sahni, executive director at the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management told Reuters that the rebels have spent much of last year amassing an enormous cache of arms.

"This period has been a period of planning and of consolidation and you will now see the consequences," Mr Sahni said, adding that mass support continued to grow across the "red corridor". "You can expect a fairly abrupt escalation of violence over coming weeks and months," he added.

Last year the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, described the rebels as "the single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country" but the Indian army has yet to called up to take on the guerrillas.

Instead, the army's jungle warfare units have been drafted to create village militias which can take on Naxalites in the villages. Last year, army commanders in Chhattisgarh told the Guardian that the Naxalite menace would be finished "in months".

Following today's raid, there was immediate speculation on India's news channels that the Indian soldiers would find themselves engaged in combat with the guerrillas, many of whom are barely out of their teens.

Like yesterday's battle in West Bengal, the issue is one of land. New Delhi would like big business to dig out the mineral wealth to fuel India's industrial surge and appears to be depopulating the forests in preparation for the sale.

In clearing villages they have created a well of deep dissatisfaction, which can be exploited by the Naxalites. Last year city brokers CLSA said in a note that a "lack of policy initiatives and the inability to win over the tribals, the largest stakeholder in the hinterlands where the Maoists hold sway, means the Naxalite movement is becoming stronger".

Step Away from the Banana: Chiquita to Pay $25M Fine in Terror Case

Chiquita to Pay $25M Fine in Terror Case

Thursday March 15, 2007 9:46 AM

By MATT APUZZO

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Banana company Chiquita Brands International said Wednesday it has agreed to a $25 million fine after admitting it paid terrorists for protection in a volatile farming region of Colombia.

The settlement resolves a lengthy Justice Department investigation into the company's financial dealings with right-wing paramilitaries and leftist rebels the U.S. government deems terrorist groups.

In court documents filed Wednesday, federal prosecutors said the Cincinnati-based company and several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers paid about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as AUC for its Spanish initials.

The AUC has been responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia's civil conflict and for a sizable percentage of the country's cocaine exports. The U.S. government designated the right-wing militia a terrorist organization in September 2001.

Prosecutors said the company made the payments in exchange for protection for its workers. In addition to paying the AUC, prosecutors said, Chiquita made payments to the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as control of the company's banana-growing area shifted.

Leftist rebels and far-right paramilitaries have fought viciously over Colombia's banana-growing region, though the victims are most often noncombatants. Most companies in the area have extensive security operations to protect employees.

In Colombia, authorities reported Wednesday that nine geologists searching for gold were captured by the FARC. In addition, the army confirmed that four contractors hired by Colombian oil giant Ecopetrol were missing near Colombia's border with Venezuela.

Colombia has one of the highest kidnappings rates in the world. Arrangements between companies and either guerrillas or paramilitaries are not uncommon, but it is impossible to know how much money is paid each year.

``The information filed today is part of a plea agreement, which we view as a reasoned solution to the dilemma the company faced several years ago,'' Chiquita's chief executive, Fernando Aguirre, said in a statement. ``The payments made by the company were always motivated by our good faith concern for the safety of our employees.''

Chiquita sold its Colombian banana operations in June 2004.

Details of the settlement were not included in court documents, but Aguirre said Chiquita would pay $25 million in fines, which it set aside this year. The company reported the deal to the Securities and Exchange Commission. A plea hearing was scheduled for Monday.

The payments were approved by senior executives at Chiquita, prosecutors wrote in court documents. Prosecutors said Chiquita began paying the right-wing AUC after a meeting in 1997 and disguised the payments in company books.

``No later than in or about September 2000, defendant Chiquita's senior executives knew that the corporation was paying AUC and that the AUC was a violent paramilitary organization,'' prosecutors wrote in Wednesday's court filing.

Company attorneys made it clear the payments were improper, prosecutors said.

``Bottom line: CANNOT MAKE THE PAYMENT,'' the company's outside counsel advised in February 2003, according to an excerpt of a memo included in court documents.

In April 2003, company officials and lawyers approached the Justice Department and told prosecutors they had been making the payments. According to court documents, the payments continued for months.

The document filed by federal prosecutors is known as an information. Unlike an indictment, it is normally worked out through discussions with prosecutors and is followed by a guilty plea.

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Associated Press writer Toby Muse in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

Chiquita: http://www.chiquita.com

'Al-Qaida' Man 'Admits' 9/11 Role: Torturing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 'Worked'

Hook my testicles up to the power mains and I'll tell you anything you want to hear.
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Related
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 1

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 2

Al-Qaida No.3 admits 'I killed Kennedy.......and Bambi....and Jimmy Hoffa'
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Update
'Confessed' List of Attacks (prepared by Rendon Group? Warning: stupid NYT headline)
'Testimony' Transcript
Can 'tortured' testimony by 9/11 'mastermind' be trusted?